Project Description
Surrender is an experiential project that explores release as a state of being rather than an instruction. Inspired by Toni Morrison’s quote, “If you surrender to the air, you could ride it,” the work examines surrender as a mental, physical, and perceptual shift—one that allows an individual to move beyond control, external projection, and internal noise. The project balances esoteric experience with scientific grounding. Research drawn from the CIA Gateway Process, meditation practices, neuroscience, and embodied studies is used not to explain the experience away, but to anchor it—providing structure and clarity to a state that is ultimately subjective and internal. While research grounds the work, riding the air is understood as a state of mind in which effort drops, perception opens, and internal interference quiets. Metaphors play a deliberate role within the project’s visual language and mind maps. Forms such as feathers, spirals, airflow, and upward motion function as symbolic carriers of meaning, while core diagrams focus on actions, states, and outcomes rather than metaphor. This distinction allows the work to remain both poetic and precise. Through installations, mirrors, projections, airflow, hanging forms, and interactive digital systems, participants encounter contrasting states of the self—ego, neutral, and surrender. The work does not direct the body, but reflects its current state. Downward placement reveals effort when it exists, while language and spatial cues invite release. When a participant is already in flow, the work does not intervene. Surrender appears across public and intimate environments, embedding moments of pause within everyday life. Rather than offering escape, the project creates conditions for authenticity—a quieter, more open state in which the individual can momentarily ride the air.
